Everything Bagel Seasoning Has Met Its Match with Trader Joe’s New Blend

There’s a culinary niche of familiar-flavors-repackaged-in-new-fashion that Trader Joe’s excels at. Their Everything But the Bagel sesame seasoning, for example, captured last year’s coveted 11^th annual Customer Choice award for favorite overall product. Now, they’ve come out with another “Everything but the…” product and it seems like it could rival that in popularity: Everything But the Elote.

Inspired by the street corn found all over Mexico, this shakeable powder is designed to imitate the combination of mayonnaise and crema, rolled in grated cheese, spritzed with lime, and sprinkled with chile powder.

Mostly, it’s the same toppings that you’ll find on the corn — salt, chile pepper, cheese, chipotle, and cumin. They sneak in a little corn flour and cane sugar to add a little of the corn flavor you’d normally get from the corn itself, which makes using it less of a topping for corn, and more of way to add that sweet-salty-cheesy elote flavor to whatever you might want to. They suggest popcorn, chicken tenders, or cornbread cakes. 

Astute observers on the Trader Joe’s List Instagram have noted that the first ingredient is cane sugar — but there isn’t any in the nutritional info, so on the official Trader Joe’s account on Instagram, they explain: “Ingredients must always be listed on product labels in descending order by weight. However, according to federal food labeling guidelines, values listed in the nutrition facts panel must be rounded to zero if the amount is considered ’insignificant.’”

The topping costs $2.49 for a 2.3-ounce jar and is already on the shelf in the spice section. If you live outside the general TJ’s zone, though, worry not: it’s already up on Amazon, though at a hefty markup.